


the only kid from high school who is still in love with you

by stott183



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: I mean, M/M, canon typical sadness, eds is at college and rich is in nyc, gay panic attack but they live far apart now, heavy mentions of canon typical memory loss, its the 90s and the boys are sad and on the phone, this isn't a fix-it Eddie is dead in the frame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 22:30:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20682977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stott183/pseuds/stott183
Summary: Richie doesn't speak on behalf of the dead, as a rule. He does, however, remember them.OR"They were last to forget because Richie remembers that phone call now, to the date. To the time. Eddie Kaspbrak, then still all color coding and pills, had carved ‘Richie Time’ into his Thursdays. The last Thursday they called was the week after Christmas, Eddie’s freshman year of college."





	the only kid from high school who is still in love with you

**Author's Note:**

> based off and titled by the front bottoms song Twelve Feet Deep also like, listen to Static by minimall if you're sad about this like me

They know that Stan held on the longest, besides Mike. There are postcards from Stan for 3 full weeks after the last letter from Bill, that first last summer. Richie asked Mike, once, how he felt. If he understood what was happening. Mike had smiled, said, “Of fucking course not, Trashmouth. I was 18. I thought you were all ditching me because of childhood trauma. I didn’t figure that out for years.” Bev had cried. They had all cried.

Before Stan, on record, it was Bill. Letters to Mike, phone calls to Stan, the odd communication with Richie. Before Bill, Eddie, whose mom fought so hard not to lose him she actually moved away, to where he was living, when he stopped calling. He left behind journals. He hadn’t recognized her for a moment. Before Eddie, Richie, then Ben, then Bev. Bev, with the most to lose and the biggest heart, the worst memories. 

This is the story. It is Loser’s history, it has been discussed, over phone calls and Skype and the letters Ben the romantic sends for holidays. Eddie is not there to refute it. Richie does not speak on behalf of the dead, as a rule. But here’s the thing. They were last.

They were last to forget because Richie remembers that phone call now, to the date. To the time. Eddie Kaspbrak, then still all color coding and pills, had carved ‘Richie Time’ into his Thursdays. The last Thursday they called was the week after Christmas, Eddie’s freshman year of college. That’s a week after Stan’s last letter. Richie remembers the slow slip, how it took longer and longer to remember Eddie’s voice each time. The excitement was vague, and his excuses about not doing shows Thursdays before 8pm grew progressively weaker, until he just booked one. But that was after the last call.

Richie had had a shit show the night before, playing to alcoholic regulars and snotty college kids at a bar that got shut down a month later for serving drinks with rat poison in them. He should have been piss drunk and moody all day, but the buzz of excitement carried him through. He even got some work done, but it was all strange, unusable material about horror movies being unrealistic. He couldn’t speak with such authority on that, he had no clue. He didn’t even fuckin like scary movies. He picked up the phone at 5:45, ready to call— someone. He couldn’t remember the number. He hung up the phone and hoped his mystery caller would do it themselves. They did.

Richie didn’t recognize Ed’s voice, not immediately. He was always shaken by that, for the first minute. It threw him off to have to recontextualize his best and most important (sorry, Stan) friend. Of course it was the Spaghetti Man, calling to inform him that college was a germ-ridden, over crowded, public health nightmare. But Eddie seemed confused too. He started with ‘hey!’, no name, and waited for Richie to speak.

“Hey, Eds.” Richie let his face go dopey, because Eddie couldn’t see him.

“Trashmouth! How’d the fucking gig go? Are you famous yet? When are you gonna come join me at Massachusetts finest public university? Did I tell you about my goddamn roommate’s cold? It’s been three fucking weeks of snotty nose shit and now he won’t take out the trash I—” Eddie realized he was speaking at a rate only dogs could understand, and paused to take a breath.

“Edward Spaghettward, you’re speaking at a rate only dogs can understand. Also, the gig was horseshit, because I’m a nineteen year old unknown comedian with three good jokes. Do you need me to kill your roommate? Paul? ‘Cuz it sounds like he sucks, and I totally can.”

“It’s pitch only dogs can hear, asshole. Dogs get more confused by fast talking than people. Also, yeah. Kill fucking Paul before I go to jail for it. Or die.” Eddie’s voice softened around the edges. “The gigs will get better, Rich. You’re the funniest motherfucker I know.”

Richie knew Eddie couldn’t see him, but he waggled his eyebrows anyway. “Glad to see you’ve accepted my place as your stepdad, finally. Do you wanna go play catch, pal?”

Eddie sputtered, and Richie broke into rolling laughter. “You’ll never be my real dad, Richard!”

“You wound me, Spaghetti. I always wanted someone to call me Daddy.”

“Oh, save it for the hookers, horndog.” Eddie was smiling, Richie could tell.

“The hookers don’t have your sweet little voice, Eds. They’re all smokers, like me and—” Richie couldn’t remember who he was going to say. Red hair was in his head, and he had felt a name, but it slipped by him like a fish. “Well, like me!”

“That habit will get you killed, Richard. And it’ll make me cough up a lung.”

“Can’t make you cough up anything when you’re a million miles away, Eddie baby!”

"Well when I get down there you’re gonna have to—” Eddie realized his words a second too late. “I mean, if I like, if I visit or something…” He trailed off, lamely.

“Aw, are you gonna move to the big city to be my sugar daddy?” Eddie snorted, startled. “Support your starving artist with all that business degree money?”

“Shut up, asshole. Not gonna do jack shit if you keep me on the phone all the time, eating away at my study time!”

Richie did his best to transmute the pang of real hurt into a joke. “Oh, woe is you. Should I go, leave you to your Math for Accounting homework and your left hand?”

“Jesus, Rich, maybe you should see a hooker, you’re insatiable tonight. Do you want me to call my mom?”

“Heyyy, Eds gets off a good one!” Richie laughs. 

The conversation continued, floating in and out of relevance and comprehension. They chatted briefly about Christmas, for which Eddie got sweaters with his name sewn in the tag and Richie got a drunken phone call from his mom about owing her money. How much gigs sucked and the diner job Richie had just gotten, which left him greasy and exhausted. Classes, for Edwin, who was bored but excelling, as they all knew he would. Wait, who was they? 

Richie had an itchy skin feeling, like they’ve forgotten something important, but he couldn’t think of what it was. He pushed it down the best he can, interested in talking to his boy much more than his shitty memory, corroded by booze and weed and the cigarettes he’d smoked for 5 years, probably. He just wanted to laugh, and call Eddie funny names, and pretend he wasn’t in love with him.

Eddie seemed fuzzy, too. He started and stopped stories about Derry, as names escaped him or places couldn’t be accessed. Richie’s concern grew, and with it the iron fist used to exterminate it. The low-grade brain hum of _eddieeddieeddie_ overtook everything, like it always did. He wished he could see him, watch him gesture and crinkle his eyebrows and fiddle with his hair.

Richie spoke before his brain was reengaged. “Eds, what are you wearing?” The hard edge that would make it a joke was missing, too soft and too sincere for Trashmouth Tozier.

“What the fuck, Rich? I was joking about the hookers but—”

“Just, humor me, Eddie. It’s not sleazy. Please?” Richie rarely asked again, and he never asked nicely.

“Best friends with a fuckin weirdo, Jesus.” Eddie muttered, but he was gonna fucking tell him. Of course he was. “Um, that yellow shirt that I borrowed from you and never gave back, the band one…” Richie was smiling. That shirt was huge on Richie and even huger on Eddie. It was also a Sex Pistols shirt. “and like, sort of dark-wash jeans and red sneakers, well the white ones with the red stripe. Oh, and Star Wars socks.”

True to his promise not to make things weird, Richie restrained himself from asking about underwear to lighten the mood. “You should just keep that shirt, you’ve had it like a full year now, klepto. Love to see my groupies in my clothes, anyway.”

“You’re such a dick, comedians don’t have groupies.” But Eddie was laughing. Richie could have listened to it for hours, high and staccato, sort of like a woodpecker, or a dog’s squeaky toy but in like, a good way.

They had been on the phone for an hour and a half. It was dark in Richie’s shoebox apartment, and he was crouched in a fold up chair in his kitchen, next to the inexplicably orange wall phone. His Chinese was long forgotten. Snow was falling through the streetlamp outside.

“Hey, Spaghetti?”

“Yeah, Richie?”

“Is it snowing where you are?” There was a pause, some shuffling, and Richie could picture him poking his little Eddie head out of the curtains.

“No, it’s not.”

Richie felt like he had just had the air punched out of him. “Oh. Okay. Good, that would be a mess for your classes tomorrow.”

“Speaking of, Rich, I should go. It’s getting late.” Eddie sounded sad, and Richie felt utterly defeated.

“Yeah no, totally, I have to get back to your mom, anyway, she’s gonna get started with—” 

“Beep beep, Richie.” Richie’s mouth snapped shut. “Just, say goodbye, Rich? Say goodbye like the normal, good friend I know you are?” When did Eddie get so old, so tired?

The world was heavy with everything not being said, Richie could feel it, like the wet, thick snow dropping patterns across his floor. He didn’t want to say goodbye, for the same reason he didn’t want to name this gut ache. For the same reason he forgot where he was from. Because the world spun fast outside Derry, and he was moving too slow. _Eddieeddieeddie_ hummed his brain, his stomach, the tips of his fingers. Don’t leave Eddie, protect Eddie, tell Eddie tell Eddie tell Eddie tell— 

“Okay, Eds. I hope your week goes well. And,” Richie’s heart is pounding. “I love you, man, you know that, right?”

Eddie sighed on the other end. It was the wrong kind, not exapserated, or laughing, but heavy with the snow-lies Richie felt. Tired. “I do, Richie. Of course I do. I love you too, okay? I’ll talk to you next week.” Richie kept the phone to his ear as the dial tone rang. Next week.

The next time Richie heard Eddie’s voice, he was standing in his hometown’s only decent restaurant, ready to piss himself with fear. It had been 27 years, and for one second Richie smelled cold Chinese and snow. And for the first time in 3 decades, the hum had a name again. _Eddieeddieeddie._ Tell Eddie.


End file.
